Allies of Catalan separatist leader Carles Puigdemont urged him on Saturday to push ahead with his secession bid as a deadline set by Madrid for a final decision on independence approaches.
The Central Government has given the Catalan president Carles Puigdemont an initial deadline of Monday after he said last week he was ready to declare the region independent but delayed the move to allow negiotations with Madrid.
Puigdemont’s number two Oriol Junqueras said that any dialogue with the central government “must have at its heart the formation of the (Catalan) republic and our commitment to independence”.
“We need to be clear that the best way of achieving an independent republic is to talk to everyone, including the international community,” Junqueras told members of his Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya party in Barcelona.
The wealthy region’s drive to break away from Spain has unleashed the country’s worst political crisis in a generation.
After staging a banned referendum on October 1, in which separatists say 90 per cent of people voted for secession, Catalan president Carles Puigdemont said last week he had accepted a “mandate for Catalonia to become an independent State”.